Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher’s conference, All Things D, will be starting tonight, and I’m excited to be attending the entire event. You’ve got hours of great interviews between Walt and Kara and tech titans like Gates and Ballmer of Microsoft, Howard Stringer of Sony, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tom Rogers of TiVo and Michael Dell of…Dell. This year, we don’t get another Gates and Jobs talk, but we do get to listen to Mrs Bill, Melinda Gates talk about her work at The Foundation. This is without doubt my favorite conference of the year because the bullshit is kept to a minimum, there’s always news and free ice cream. And Powerpoint is banned from all presentations. My only complaint is that I generally end up liveblogging 5 hours a day solo at this thing, which isn’t what I call a walk in the park. [AllThingsD]

Windows 7’s UI is going to be unveiled by Ballmer and Gates tonight at All Things D during their interview. We’ll be there, so check back periodically to see what Steve and Bill have, since pretty much all we’ve seen so far is Windows 7 under a Vista UI. [All Things D - Image Credit (Just a concept)]

Update: We’re there live.

I hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day weekend! I sure did. And now here we are, back to work the day after the long holiday weekend. A little fatter, a tiny more sunburned and maybe, just maybe, still a tiny drunk. God bless America! If you remember correctly, last week I asked people to send in cameraphone pictures of their summer adventures, both of the beautiful and funny varieties. We received both! So don’t worry; while you might be stuck at a desk under harsh fluorescent lighting now, we’ll help you pretend you’re still outside, beer in one hand, hot dog in the other, enjoying summer as you should.

Amazon is offering a free TiVo HD with choose TV purchases, and not just the crazy-expensive ones, either. You can pick up a 40-inch Samsung (720P, 8000:1 contrast and 2 HDMI ports) for $947.71 and score the free TiVo (which currently runs about $230 on Amazon). The offer is also good for select Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi models, just make sure you choose the “Add both to cart” purchase option or you’ll buy the TV ala cart. [Amazon]

So you think you are a steampunk fan because you got all your steampunk things, right? Your steampunk music instruments and weapons and figure models and Darth Vader mask and desktop personal and laptop and dog and LEGO models and personal body guard, and even your own steampunk lightsaber… sure, whatever, but do you’ve your steampunkish cufflinks ready when Captain Nemo invites you to a party aboard the Nautilus? That’s what I thought. Fortunately, you can pick them from this cool catalog of weird and wonderful custom Victorian-looking jewels.

My favorite is the copper adjustable cuff bracelet with the propeller. Now I only need to get myself a monster-looking nuclear submarine, and invite Kirk Douglas—or Walter Mossberg—for a 20,000 league trip. [Etsy]

If you find yourself with some time on your hands during this long Memorial Day weekend, making your own folding origami lamp could prove to be a good time-killer while you wait for meat to cook on the BBQ. The design is as basic as it gets—all you need is a pre-scored 0.8mm sheet of stainless steel and some sort of lamp fixture. Then it is just a matter of bending the segments into an origami design that suits your tastes. As you can see from the image, the light shining through the steel makes for an one-of-a-kind decorative lighting solution. [Yanko Design via DVICE via The Design Blog]

Cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear reaction at room temperature, has long been relegated to science fiction after researchers were unable to recreate the experiment that first “discovered” the phenomenon. But a Japanese scientist was supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction earlier this week, which—if the results are real—could revolutionize the way we gather energy.

Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan, demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters from six major newspapers and two tv studios, Arata and a co-professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.

Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an evacuated cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix(ZrO2-Pd). Arata stated that the mix caused the deuterium’s nuclei to fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the center of the cell warm for 50 hours.

Arata’s experiment would mark the first time anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion became synonymous with bad science.

But the method Arata showed was “highly reproducible,” according to eye witnesses of the event. If nobody calls this demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have finally found the holy grail of cheap and abundant energy—nuclear power, without its destructive heat. [Physicsworld via Slashdot]